Regulatory competition and the efficiency of alternative derivative product margining systems

Paul Kupiec and Patricia A. White

No 96-11, Finance and Economics Discussion Series from Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.)

Abstract: Although margin requirements would arise naturally in the context of unregulated trading of clearinghouse-guaranteed derivative contracts, the margin requirements on U.S. exchange-traded derivative products are subject to government regulatory oversight. At present, two alternative methodologies are used for margining exchange-traded derivative contracts. Customer positions in securities and securities options are margined using a strategy-based approach. Futures, futures-options, and securities-option clearinghouse margins are set using a portfolio margining system. This study evaluates the relative efficiency of these alternative margining techniques using data on S&P500 futures-option contracts traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The results indicate that the portfolio margining approach is a much more efficient system for collateralizing the one-day risk exposures of equity derivative portfolios. Given the overwhelming efficiency advantage of the portfolio approach, the simultaneous existence of these alternative margining methods is somewhat puzzling. It is argued that the co-existence of these systems can in part be explained in the context of Kane's (1984) model of regulatory competition. The efficiency comparison also provides insight into other industry and regulatory issues including the design of bilateral collateralization agreements and the efficiency of alternative schemes that have been proposed for setting regulatory capital requirements for market risk in banks and other financial institutions

Keywords: Derivative; securities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1996
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/1996/199611/199611abs.html (text/html)
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/1996/199611/199611pap.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Regulatory competition and the efficiency of alternative derivative product margining systems (1996)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedgfe:96-11

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Finance and Economics Discussion Series from Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ryan Wolfslayer ; Keisha Fournillier ().